Gaming highlights & what we’re playing this weekend

Willie (who’s Willie? My given name is M4d Ski11z) is out doing something, so it falls to me to compile some sort of readable pre-weekend sustenance for the console masses. Oh, to be a member of the superior PC gaming aristocracy.

Activision-Blizzard put on an impressive show for “Call of Duty: Ghosts” earlier this week, unveiling several new features and design tweaks. I say that as someone who played “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare”, let out a hearty guffaw, and promptly never played any following CoD game.

Of interest to me was “squad mode”. Players can create a group of AI soldiers and lead them against other players’ creations. While you can fight with them, players can also hang back and just watch them go. It’s reminiscent of some of the multiplayer features I saw in “Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops”, a game I was absolutely hooked on when my PSP still worked.

Gaming news this week

Grand Theft Auto Online is a thing– I guess Rockstar North wasn’t going to be outdone by snooty Activision. GTA Online looks to expand on the multiplayer ideas introduced in GTA IV, but they’re adding a suite of content creation tools for budding criminal adventurers.

Humble Origin Bundle – This is a great deal and it’s for a good cause so be sure to have a look. “Battlefield 3” and “Mirror’s Edge” are worth getting if you haven’t purchased them yet. Plus, you can get some keys for Origin and Steam depending on your preference.

Game harassment proves toxic to the industry – Polygon’s Brian Crecente has a great write-up on what impact vitriolic gamers have on content developers and employees. Spoiler alert: the situation is not very great. Let’s all do a better job of being nice to each other … for science.

JP: Listen, guys. I have a confession to make: I only played Warhammer 40: Dawn of War 2 last weekend and there’s a good chance it’s probably the only game I’ll play this weekend, but it’s not my fault! Why did Relic Entertainment put all the delicious blue wargear at the end of the game? WHY!?

That said, I have some homework for you guys this weekend: Play your games standing up and try playing in shorter spurts, maybe 30 minutes at a time. I found the exercise to be refreshing and it carried some great positives, including better engagement and much more efficient playing.

Try that out and let me know how it went. Cheers!
M4d Ski11z: This weekend, I plan on saving the world and all of mankind in “Saints Row IV.” I’ll also team with Pikmins and tossing those creatures like I’m working in a pizza factory in “Pikmin 3″ on the Wii U. And who knows? I may have some more gaming goodness waiting this evening. I’ll report back if I do.

Have a great weekend, peeps.

John-Henry Perera is a web producer for the Houston Chronicle and an established video game and geek culture journalist in the Houston area. John-Henry has written/produced over a dozen feature-length reports on the subject and his finger on everything buzzing in the game development and nerd scene. If you have a story idea, he’d love to hear about it via his Twitter account: @pererajh.